The incredible first memoir from the Booker-winning radical icon Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE INDIE BOOK AWARDS 2026
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMENS PRIZE FOR NONFICTION 2026

‘Heart-smashed’ by the death of the mother she ran from at age eighteen and shaken by the intensity of her response, Arundhati Roy began this remarkable memoir – a soaring account, both intimate and inspiring, of how the author became the person and the writer she is: shaped by circumstance, but above all by her relationship to her extraordinary, singular mother, Mary, who she describes as ‘my shelter and my storm’.

With the scale, sweep and depth of her novels, and the passion, political clarity and warmth of her essays, Mother Mary Comes to Me is an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace – a memoir like no other.

‘I loved Arundhati Roy’s memoir; raw, tender, honest about the ferocity of mother-daughter relationships and the making of a writer’ Nilanjana Roy, Financial Times (Books of the Year)

‘Outstanding. Roy’s life story is truly remarkable’ Nicola Sturgeon, Observer (Books of the Year)

FOYLES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025
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BLACKWELL'S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025
WINNER OF THE GOOGLE PLAY BEST OF 2025 AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2026

About the Author

Arundhati Roy is the author of the novels The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize in 1997, and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2017.

She is the author of various works of non-fiction including My Seditious Heart, Azadi and, most recently, The Architecture of Modern Empire.